


by what i know.

by projectfreelancer



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Character Study, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Religious Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 06:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10269944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/projectfreelancer/pseuds/projectfreelancer
Summary: Wash is just a man made of memories.(character study fic)





	

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING for sexual assault between Director/Wash like seriously right at the beginning (my interpretation of their dynamic and Wash's loyalty)
> 
> WARNING for suicide (the Epsilon part)
> 
> the tucker/wash is moreso implied than obvious
> 
> Wash deserves some rest let's be honest.

Hands are tangled in Wash's blonde hair, and his mouth is full, and he wonders if he could burst at the seams. At the way the Director arches his eyes closed, breath swamping out loudly, hands tightening, and Washington realizes he has a headache. Works through it, knowns when orders are not to be disobeyed.

The Director’s hand is caressing his cheek, gentle for once and taps against his eyelids. Wash takes it as his cue to open his eyes, set on the Director’s own. And that is enough for the older man, as he reaches his edge, eyes never leaving Wash.

Bitter green burns at Wash’s memory for days afterwards. When Carolina looks at him, he feels nausea rise through him, choking him, and he has to close his eyes. If she notices, she says nothing, and he is thankful.

-

He says, voice hitching, _David_ , and it feels empty. Two syllables, and he knows the Director is searching for three. _Ah-lis-sin._

The man gasps, sour _ah_ , and David wonders how many sins he has committed. Had never found himself to be much of a religious man until being pliant on his knees.

If he closes his eyes, curl a _Hail Mary_ inside his mind—cannot say it outloud, mouth full.

-

York does not question. Maine does not question. Connie does not question. Frequent, private meetings between the Director and Wash go unnoticed. No one even blinks an eye at them, except–

“Counselor, please excuse us. We have a meeting scheduled,” Director says, Wash standing across from him, armour on. A shield; a wall.

The counselor looks in between the two, a hum slicing in his mouth. “May I ask the reason you’ve scheduled so many meetings with Agent Washington lately, sir?”

The Counselor asks gently, but the Director is no gentle man. “You may not. You better watch your boundaries, Counselor. I am personally prepping him for his artificial intelligence surgery. He requested these meetings himself.”

Wash’s stomach burns at the lie. As if—As if Wash would choose this. On his knees for grief, for mourning, as a second choice. He considers begging South for some of her hair dye, anything to corrupt the blonde hair that marks him like a halo. But he stays silent, does not move an inch even when the Counselor creeps out the room, door slamming shut.

“Anything you have to say?” The Director asks, not wanting an answer.

“No,” Wash says. A pause. The Director quirks an eyebrow. “No, _sir_.”

“You’re the only sane soldier here, David.” The man says, moving towards him. “You can call me Leonard, too.”

The name sears into his mind for days.

-

Leonard.  
_Leonard_.  
**Leonard**.

When he thinks about church, the thoughts are ruined, bloodied, covered in an older man’s hands. He does not pray for: forgiveness, redemption, sanity.

-

Carolina blinks, and he flinches. Carolina smiles, and he flinches. Carolina does anything, and he flinches.

He wants to feel guilty over it. Wants to stop imagining Carolina as the man he visits. Wants to stop seeing green eyes, Carolina’s eyes, Director’s eyes.

When Carolina touches her hand against his back during a mission, he shoves at her violently, yelling, “Don’t touch me.”

No one asks why, no one questions him, and he does not question himself when he is not called into the Director’s room that night.

-

The Director kisses him once. It is after Wash’s mouth was on him, after the song’s climax, when the Director is dressed again. Wash makes to leave, but the Director pleads, quietly, “David.”

Inhale. Exhale. “Sir?” And he thinks, _if he asks of me again, I will say no._

“David, come here.” _I will say no_.

He moves closer. And the Director’s in front of him, his hands on him again, on his waist, and he pulls him against him, and there are lips on his.

Wash kisses back like he did with the boys on his home planet. Wash thought he loved them; Wash thought he could love his boss—that he was a good man. The older man’s lips are chapped and dry. Wash thinks, _I will say no_.

-

Wash’s name continues to rise amongst the ranks, above South, above North, above Connie. Wash wonders if they laugh behind his back. _Wash, that high? He’s nothing more than a joke for a soldier._

Wash would not disagree with them.

-

His surgery is scheduled for 6 p.m.

-

Epsilon burns him alive. There’s images, and they glitch, they flicker, they eat at Wash’s mind. There’s Allison in a red dress, there’s green eyes wide open, there’s Allison’s blonde hair shining like the sun, there’s Carolina young and in tears, a funeral without a body, a man wreaked with chaos and despair.

Wash cries for a lost family that is not his, and when Epsilon goes quiet, Wash cries for his own family. His planet was destroyed. His family now, Project Freelancer, is being destroyed. His mind is destroyed. He’s wracked with sobs and screams. If he closes his eyes, green cuts at him. If he opens his eyes, Epsilon screams cruelly.

Wash wants nothing more than to tear the AI out of himself.

-

The Director does not call for him after Epsilon. Of course not. He’s dirty now. He’s wrongwrongwrong. There’s screaming in his head, in his mouth, and he cannot even blink without seeing death.

Project Freelancer is going to hell lit up in flames, and they all know it. Wash wants to ring out something poetic, like his poetry in a diary on his home planet, but he knows Project Freelancer does not deserve any poetic sort of redemption. He imagines the Director— _Leonard Church_ —nailed with silver on a burning cross, hands spread.

He laughs, and Epsilon sobs.

-

When he looks in the mirror, blonde beams gold. His eyes are wrong (like the rest of him), a searing green. When the mirror shatters underneath his hands, Epsilon is the one who laughs as he tears the shards out.

-

Epsilon shatters like a broken mirror in his mind. Epsilon with a gun to his head. Epsilon hanging by a rope. Epsilon drowned in bottles of vodka. Wash sees it all at once. Epsilon in tears, Epsilon on a cross, Epsilon dying by a tank shot. Epsilon becoming broken shards piercing into Wash’s mind.

Wash wishes he could die with him too.

-

**You’d be surprised by what I know, Director.**

Revenge is bittersweet. The Director isn’t dead, but a part of him is. Wash feels guilt bubble in his stomach. Had ripped his loyalty to shreds in front of them all. Had made his allegiance not to Project Freelancer anymore. Wash wants to be poetic again, say he’s finding his own redemption, his own recreation, anywhere away from the older man.

But he has memories of a full mouth, and green eyes, and Epsilon echoes at him, _Disgusting_.

-

Wash knows he’s evil. In the end, it’s all that Epsilon wanted him to know. Wrong, bad, evil, out of his body. He settles the sides and joins Meta, anything to burn the remnants of his loyalties to Project Freelancer.

(But it’s not Maine; it’s _not_ Maine.)

(He remembers Maine. The real Maine. Strong, a soldier, someone he admired. And when they kissed on the Mother of Invention, liquor slow on their tongues, Wash did not feel so weak. It happened every so often, a way to find intimacy trapped in space. But once the Director set his eyes on him, Maine did not call for him anymore.)

-

Meta betrays him, in the end. Or perhaps it’s the other way around: Wash betrays Meta. Wash has never learned how to be loyal in a normal way.

But when the blues take him in like a lost puppy they have to discipline, his heart warms. Perhaps this–this is his redemption. This is where he can learn what it means to be loyal to people who will not eat at his heart.

And when Tucker tugs at his elbow, says, “It’s time to get on the ship,” Wash thinks of the boys on his home planet.

Wash feels an unfamiliar smile paint his lips, and he follows. And he knows the sins that come from loyalty, but _his_ blue team makes him want to stay. 


End file.
